stevepottsbicycles

Welcome to the Steve Potts blog. We talk about bikes, motorcycles, wood milling, music, Point Reyes, and a host of wonderful, exciting and interesting vignettes bouncing around the mind of Steve himself.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

No Reaming Here!

Titanium does not like to be reamed! This is a good shot of the seat tube being machine line bored, a timely process that leaves the seat tube with a beautiful 360 degree, 100 % fully machined surface for a perfect seat post fit!

Line Boring Seat Tube

Monday, April 13, 2009

Another Nameless Repair!

This is also a new downtube repair for a titanium production frame . Just for education purposes , I am sharing this photo to show that this frame was not fusion welded, as by evidence that you can see the tube is separate from the actual weld, ( you can see the line between the two). It is important to do a fusion weld ( fusing the two parts together without using welding filler rod). This process done correctly insures that there is a deep weld bond between the two parts, in this case the bottom bracket and the downtube. If you click on the photo you can see this clearly. I hope these photos will help the interested bicycle enthusiast learn more about the building process!

Repairs, Repairs and More Repairs!

Over the years I have taken on quite a few titanium repairs of other brands of bikes other than my own. It is hard to turn down someone trying to get some more life out of their trusty old bike. It has also given me a lot of insight on why some of these frames are failing. I am always asked why someone should buy one frame over another , or more to the point, why should someone buy one of my frames over another brand. So being a custom builder I am always in a position to try to educate my potential customer how I build a frame differently than others. The frame shown above which will remain nameless, was a repair for a broken downtube. Upon cutting out the downtube I discovered that the seatube purge hole is in the wrong place and the seat tube was not welded to the bottom bracket at all underneath the downtube. This is definitely one of the differences on my frames , my seat tubes are completely welded to the bottom bracket before further assembly. This makes a stronger more reliable frame!